“The aunts don’t understand why we didn’t do this sooner.”
“She was safe when I was in. So it was worth staying. But now . . . now he’s got a three-million bounty on her head. I either stop him or he gets her. I’m not going to let him get her.”
“Even with all those MacKilligan resources, Max couldn’t find him. What makes you think that you can?”
“Because I’ve fucked him,” she said matter-of-factly.
“That doesn’t mean you know him better than anyone else.”
“I know him well enough. I’ll find him.”
“Then let’s get you home.” The driver placed her hand behind the other’s head and pulled her close until their foreheads touched. They stayed like that for a long but powerful moment.
Then something changed. They must have sensed they were being watched. Slowly, they looked in the direction of the tree she’d been silently sitting against. And she knew that these two women saw her even though she was in utter darkness.
They, however, stood in the light that came from the nearby church. And what she saw told her two things about these women. One was that they were both Asian and probably related. They had the same noses and jaws. And second, they weren’t human. The light reflected off their eyes the way it did the wolves and foxes in the forests. Her mother, when she still lived, used to tell her about people like this. People who were only “a little” human. Her mother had told her they were dangerous. Deadly, in fact. Because they were more animal than human.
Yet after living in the forests for so long, she’d also learned that most animals were only dangerous when hungry or startled. Since the digger had just gotten out of prison, she’d probably want something more filling than a scrawny girl who hadn’t eaten in two days. And neither the digger nor the driver had been startled.
They watched her for several seconds until the digger put her forefinger to her lips and said, “Shhhhh.”
Grinning, the digger winked and went around to the passenger side of the car. The driver got in her side. Doors were slammed closed, the engine revved, and they sped off. Disappearing into the night and leaving her alone with her beloved forests and the animals in it.
She was guessing the digger was right, though, about someone coming for her. No one would be looking for the digger. No one would dare.
* * *
Charlie pulled the stray out of the bathtub and quickly wrapped him in a big towel. She gasped when the dog wiggled his way out of the towel and fell to the floor, but laughed when he turned on the towel and grabbed it with his fangs, desperately tugging one way, then the other.
“Do not rip my towel,” she warned. When she heard it tear, she quickly released it. The dog stopped tugging once there was no longer any resistance, then shook all over, water flying everywhere.
Charlie laughed harder, holding up another towel to keep from getting drenched. Then he stopped, spun around, and charged out the door. Charlie slid quickly across the floor on her knees, diving on the dog and again wrapping him up in the towel. They wrestled on the bedroom floor outside her bathroom until the dog began to lick her face.
Yeah. She was keeping this dog. Not that Berg would like that. He barely tolerated Benny, who had been his dog before he’d met Charlie. As part wolf, Charlie shouldn’t be much of a dog fan either, but she’d discovered long ago that she was definitely a dog person. She just liked them.
Pulling the dog into her lap, Charlie noticed Vargas for the first time. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, forearms resting on his raised knees.
And he was staring. Blankly.
Good Lord, what had Max done to the poor guy?
“Hi, Zé. You okay?”
“You had bears walking through your living room,” he said, still gazing at the wall behind the bed Charlie shared with Berg. “I was going to warn you to get out while you still could because you were so nice to me earlier and I didn’t want you to be eaten, but then I saw the size of your bed . . . and this.” He held up one of Berg’s sneakers. “I kept thinking, ‘What could fit a shoe like this? What kind of being?’ Then I realized . . . a bear.”
Charlie didn’t have the heart to tell him there were bigger bears than Berg and his brother and sister. Bears that wore bigger shoes. Tiny, their landlord, had three older brothers who were several inches bigger and wore size twenty-four shoes. One of Tiny’s sisters had restrained a carjacker once by yanking the man out of the car, throwing him to the ground, and stepping on him with her giant foot until the cops came. All of Tiny’s siblings and cousins called him “Tiny”—and he was six-nine!
But Charlie knew that poor Zé wasn’t ready to hear any of that yet. She was sure Max had already freaked the guy out. She was really good at that. Really good at terrorizing people without actually meaning to. Well . . . at least sometimes she didn’t mean to. Other times, she absolutely meant to. It really depended on Max’s mood.
Charlie got off the floor and sat down on the bed, facing Zé. She still held the dog in her arms.
“I know this is hard for you. All these years you thought you were just a guy, but you’re not.”
That green gaze moved from the wall to Charlie. “So you’re one, too?”
“Yeah. All three of us are. Actually . . . everyone on this street is.”
His eyes narrowed a bit. “Then do it,” he ordered. “Become whatever it is you become.”
Charlie shrugged. “Can’t. Due to fucked-up genetics provided by my idiot father, I can’t shift to wolf or honey badger.”
“Of course you can’t.”
“I can only do this . . .”
Charlie unleashed her fangs and roared. Zé jerked, his back and head hitting the wall behind him; the dog in her lap yelped and ran to the bathroom. He spun around so that his butt ended up slamming the door closed.
Retracting her fangs, Charlie focused on Zé and grimaced. “Ooops. I really didn’t mean to scare him.”
“Did you mean to scare me?” Zé demanded. “Because you did!”
* * *
“You kidnapped a cat?”
Max glared across the yard at her best friend, Dutch Alexander. They’d been friends since Max had met Dutch in junior high.
“I did not kidnap a cat.”
“You borrowed one?”
“Very funny.”
He moved closer and she continued to dribble the basketball she was holding. She’d set up a basketball hoop by their garage. It wasn’t for practice so much as something to do with her hands. That’s all basketball had ever been for her: something to do with her hands. You know . . . something other than punching someone in the gut or slashing someone’s face with her claws.
“Do you not understand what you’ve done?” Dutch demanded.
“Of course I do. I saved his life, thank you very much. And, even more impressive, I’ve taken the time to explain to him that he’s one of us. That he’s a shifter.”
“You saved his life? So he’s alive?”
“Of course he’s alive.”
“What do you mean, ‘of course’? You left a shitload of bodies back there.”
“So?”
“It was the Netherlands. One of those countries where they care about that sort of thing.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Your cat works for our government. They think he’s dead and they’re looking to nail the ones who killed him.”
“But he’s not dead. He’s in the house.”
Dutch took a step back, tossing his head dramatically. “He’s here?”
“First off, you need to calm down.”
“No, first off, you need to get him out of your house, and make sure he forgets that you ever existed.”
“Except I’m unforgettable.”
“I see,” Dutch said, shaking his head.
“You see what?”
“You’re trying to make me insane. You’re trying to make my life harder than it already is.”
<
br /> “Why do you always accuse me of that?”
“Because you always are!”
“Dude, it’s okay. He’s fine. He got hit on the head pretty bad, but he’s one of us. So he’s recovered quite nicely. I don’t see what you’re freaking out about.”
“What am I freaking out about? How about your sister?”
Max lined up her ball and made the shot. It went in and bounced back over to her like a well-trained dog.
“What does Charlie have to do with anything?” She assumed he’d meant Charlie since Dutch and Stevie had always gotten along like a house on fire. Whereas, Charlie always seemed to want to set Dutch on fire.
“Max, they know it was you. You and Nelle and the others.”
“Who knows?”
“Who do you think?”
“So, the Group.” The shifter-only protection organization that Dutch had worked for since graduating college.
“Right. And Katzenhaus. And BPC.”
“BPC?”
“The Bear Preservation Council.”
“Oh, yeah. Them.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So what if they know?”
“You and your girlfriends left a trail of bodies in one of the countries that we are close friends with. To those organizations, that just means you’re off your chain.”
“I’m off my what?”
“That you’re out of control. And if you’re out of control, they’re going to want one of two things: either to make you join the Group, so they can put your out-of-control-ness to good use; or to put you down because you can’t be trusted.”
“Well, that seems unfair!”
“I repeat: You left a trail of bodies in the Netherlands!”
“Stop yelling at me. And my plan wasn’t to leave a trail of bodies anywhere. They shot first. I just reacted.” She continued to dribble the ball. “So what now?”
“Has your rescue cat called anyone? Maybe tried to make contact with his team? Which, I feel I should point out, is his full-human team.”
Max rolled her eyes at the wolverine dramatics. “I don’t think so. But he’s only been up for a few hours.”
“You mean, he’s just sitting in the house? Alone?”
“I had to convince him first that he wasn’t all that human and then . . .”
Dutch cringed, clearly already concerned with what she was about to say. “And then what?”
“And then he saw the bears . . . as bears.”
“What bears? Oh, God!” He quickly caught on. “Not the Dunns!”
“Well . . .”
“You can’t show a first-time adult shifter the grizzlies! It would freak anyone out! The Dunns are huge!”
“How was I to know that they’d come wandering through the house in their bear forms first thing in the morning? When the sun comes up, they’re usually human again.”
“Did he run? Because I would run.”
“No. He just wandered upstairs. Charlie was up there, so I figured she could deal with him.”
“Charlie knows he’s here? And she’s not freaking out?”
“Actually, she likes him,” Max replied.
“Seriously?” Frustrated, Dutch threw his hands into the air. “She likes a stranger-cat but just the sight of me makes her a psychotic—”
“Why are you here?” Charlie suddenly demanded, walking over to them from the back of the house.
“How you wound me,” Dutch muttered, turning away.
Charlie snatched the basketball from Max’s hands. “And you need to get inside and help that cat.”
“I did what I was supposed to do: I told him what he is. He just didn’t want to listen.”
“He’s finally listening and now I believe he’s having a mini-breakdown.”
“How am I supposed to help him with that?”
“By doing anything? You brought him here, Max. You told him the truth. Now you have to deal with the repercussions of those actions.”
Max rolled her eyes, blew out a breath, and leaned far back in a general show of frustration.
“What did you think was going to happen?” Charlie asked. “That you were just going to tell him he could shift into a giant cat and he would be, ‘Oh. Okay. Thanks for the info. I’ll go out and live my life now’? Did you really think that would happen?”
“Yes! I did! I didn’t think I’d actually have to—”
“Care?”
Max shrugged.
“Get your ass in there,” Charlie ordered, “and deal with this. Now.”
With a whining sigh that Max knew she wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else, she started toward the house. Only stopping to glance back so she could watch her sister react to Dutch’s presence by throwing the basketball at him with as much strength as she could muster—which was a lot.
“Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!” the wolverine howled, grabbing his side and rubbing it while pacing in circles. “What did I do?”
“You exist!”
chapter FIVE
Stevie entered the kitchen just as Max walked in from the backyard. They stopped and stared at each other for a moment before looking at the kitchen table.
Max’s rescued cat was sitting slumped over the table, his muscular arms hanging limply at his sides.
“Is he dead?” Max asked, not appearing as concerned as Stevie felt she should be. Max was the one who’d brought him to their house. She was the one who’d taken it upon herself to tell him that he wasn’t nearly as human as he thought he was. So, in Stevie’s estimation, her sister should be much more concerned about the well-being of her rescue!
“If you’re concerned,” Stevie suggested, “you should check.”
“You check.”
“Max!” she spit out in a harsh whisper.
“If he’s dead, I don’t know why you’re whispering.”
Stevie changed her eye color to the bright gold her shifter form had. She wasn’t about to shift. Not in the house. Especially now that she’d begun to worry her shifted form might be getting bigger. Much to her continuing happiness, however, she had complete control of her animal rage. Still, Max insisted on worrying about whether Stevie was taking her meds or not—of course she was!—so just the eye change alone was enough to get Max to—
“Fine!” Max reached across the table to press her fingers against Zé’s neck to check his pulse, but before she could touch him, she jumped back and yelped. Blood dripped down her arm.
“Goddammit!”
From Zé’s lap, the feral cat that lurked around their backyard popped her head up and bared her fangs at Max.
“Don’t hiss at me, you little fucker,” Max warned, angrily swiping at the bloody wounds the little beast had caused.
The feral cat scrambled up onto the table and onto Zé’s head. With her front paws on the back of his head and her back paws resting on his shoulders, she arched her body and her battered, furry tail became big and fluffy.
“If I were you,” Stevie softly suggested, “I’d move away from Zé. Because that feral cat does not like you.”
“You know, this is all your fault.”
“How is this my fault?” Stevie wanted to know.
“Because you insist on feeding this thing! Now we can’t get rid of it.”
“Do you want her to starve?”
“Yes!”
Stevie, without thinking, leaned over and pushed Max. Max, of course, pushed her back. It was something they’d been doing since . . . let’s see . . . oh, yes! The day they’d met.
Poor Carlie. She’d welcomed Stevie into her home for what was supposed to be a day-long playdate with her unknown half-sisters. Instantly, Stevie had hit it off with Carlie’s eldest, Charlie. But then she’d met Max and was immediately left alone with her while mother and daughter had gone to the kitchen for cookies and milk. In that moment, Max hadn’t actually done anything to Stevie. She hadn’t touched her or said anything or even stuck her tongue out at her. But Stevie just hadn’t liked the way her new half-sister had stared at her. She
hadn’t liked it at all. So she’d reached up and pushed Max’s shoulders. Max had responded by pushing her back. And that’s when Stevie had snapped. She’d pulled back her tiny fist, filled with fingers that were currently insured for half-a-million dollars because of her musical career, and punched the older, taller, meaner girl in the nose. When all Stevie got back was a grin . . . she knew she was dead.
Seconds later, Carlie and Charlie had found the pair rolling around the tiny backyard of their Connecticut mobile home. It had rained earlier in the day so they were both covered in mud and blood. Stevie had only been six at the time, had already been deemed a musical prodigy, performing solo piano and violin concerts at the Met in New York City to sold-out audiences. She’d already learned that all those feelings she had roiling around her gut were to be repressed. They were to be beaten down, ignored, kept away from the light of day. Being around Max, however, had brought out everything Stevie’s family had, up to that day, told her to keep under wraps. Carlie—dear, sweet, loving Carlie—had tried everything to stop the girls from fighting, but she was too nice. A sweet, motherly wolf who had immediately come to adore the Siberian tiger–honey badger hybrid prodigy who was in a nasty fistfight with the other girl who’d been dumped on her for no other reason than that Carlie was just too damn nice. Unable to get the two girls under control herself, Carlie had left it up to her daughter. Charlie, always up for a challenge, had gotten Stevie and Max to stop fighting by grabbing them by the extra skin at the back of their necks and twisting with all the strength she had.
The pain had been so horrible, Stevie and Max had immediately separated, but Charlie still took a moment to lift both girls in the air—one hand on each—and shake them. So that they “understood” that what they had done was not okay.
They hadn’t learned that, though. Instead, they’d learned to keep their fights away from the watchful gaze of their big sister.
Like now. In this kitchen with just the two of them, a possibly dead male, and a feral cat. It was the perfect time for them to get a good fight on. But before Stevie could make a solid move, that feral cat charged across the table and launched her seven-pound body at Max’s face.
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